Kaiping Junk by Bryan Mark Taylor

"My painting Kaiping Junk was created on location in Southern China where the Datang riverboat fisherman live and work. These boats, along with the centuries old traditional fishing culture, are being destroyed at a rapid pace. Once the boats are taken off the water, the fisherman are relocated by the government to apartments and sent to work in the nearby factories. In the first half of the 20th century, there were tens of thousands of Datang people living and fishing on the rivers in Southern China.  Unfortunately, there are only a few thousand left today. 

Whether it's a boat in China, a small farm in the western United States, or a suburb of Havana, Cuba, the old ways are quickly disappearing to make way for the new. As a careful observer of changing human environments, I painted Kaiping Junk as part of an ongoing series of works I call 'Vanishing Landscapes.'  By balancing aesthetics with international and narrative concepts, I create works documenting the places and cultures facing immense challenges due to industrial, economic and environmental factors." – BRYAN TAYLOR